The maternally inherited obligate bacteria Wolbachia is known to infect various lepidopteran insects. However, so far only a few butterfly species harbouring this bacterium have been thoroughly studied. The current study aims to identify the infection status of these bacteria in some of the commonly found butterfly species in India. A total of nine butterfly species belonging to four different families were screened using PCR with Wolbachia-specific wsp and ftsZ primers. The presence of the Wolbachia super group 'B' in the butterflies Red Pierrot, Talicada nyseus (Guerin) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) and Blue Mormon, Papilio polymnestor Cramer (Papilionidae), is documented for the first time in India. The study also gives an account on the lifetime fecundity and female-biased sex ratio in T. nyseus, suggesting a putative role for Wolbachia in the observed female-biased sex ratio distortion.
Wolbachia is a group of cytoplasmically inherited bacteria that can cause reproductive alterations in arthropods including parthenogenesis, reproductive incompatibility and feminization of genetic males. Wolbachia are found in a well studied group of insects, but there is a lack of data on their distribution. Workers of the honeybee sub species Apis cerana indica, collected from different parts of Karnataka, India were screened by PCR for Wolbachia, because this endosymbiont has been implicated in causing thelytoky in other Hymenoptera. In the present communication, we report the absence of Wolbachia endosymbiont in the workers of honeybee collected from different geographic locations of Karnataka using Wolbachia specific 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction enzymes.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijls.v5i1.5230 International Journal of Life Sciences Vol.5(1) 2011 19-24
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